


should have loved a thunderbird

by wiitts



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Bisexuality, F/F, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, Mild Sexual Content, Period-Typical Homophobia, Self-Harm, Unrequited Love, Vague Romantic Tension, poor decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 08:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11309379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiitts/pseuds/wiitts
Summary: Jordan, a few months before The Great Gatsby. (Or: bitter bisexual Jordan Baker makes poor decisions regarding alcohol and Daisy.)





	should have loved a thunderbird

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags. Additional warning for vomiting, including self-induced vomiting as a means of self harm.
> 
> Title from a Sylvia Plath poem, Mad Girl’s Love Song.

She hears about Gatsby’s parties before she hears about Gatsby himself. To Jordan, the autumn before Nick came to New York, Gatsby was just some nameless swell who threw his money at strangers by way of illegal booze and extravagant performers. His name wasn't important - at least to Jordan - only that he threw big parties and Jordan liked big parties. So when she finds out the date of one of them the first thing she does is invite Daisy to come with her.

"Whose party is this again?" Daisy asks. One of her thin, blonde eyebrows twitches upwards.

The two of them are lounging on Daisy's crisp white sofa. The early autumn light is bright and cold as it streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It paints long streaks across Daisy, catches in her gold spun hair and slides along her pale arms. She’s in her white knee-length skirt, the one with a ruffly, lace hem, and a scoop necked blouse dyed a delicate, creamy peach. Her dainty legs are crossed at the ankle and her chin is tilted back, just half an inch or so. She looks ridiculously beautiful like that; a painting by one of those dead French artists. Degas, maybe. Renoir. Or - no, Lautrec. Definitely Lautrec.

Jordan realizes she's been staring. Jerks her gaze away.

"Doesn't matter," she says airily. She notices Daisy’s sat up slightly and follows suit. She moves closer to Daisy, enough so that Jordan could touch her knee with a flick of a wrist. "Just this fellow down in West Egg. I've heard he throws _fabulous_ parties - a full orchestra, decadent desserts, and -" Jordan drops her voice a little. Goes and leans over Daisy, an arm braced on either side of her so that Jordan’s practically caged her in. Jordan dips down, their faces only a few inches apart and chests nearly touching. It’s for dramatic effect, Jordan tells herself. "- more alcohol than a speakeasy."

Daisy sighs. A single exhale a feather's weight heavier than a normal breath. It sweeps across Jordan’s face and neck, moves her hair on sixteenth of an inch. She bites down a shiver.

"Come with me," Jordan tries, voice still pitched low. Sometimes the trick to getting Daisy to do what you want is to act like you're ordering her to do it. Not that Jordan could ever order Daisy Buchanan to do what she wanted, no way. But if you pretend you can, and make it convincing enough, Daisy'll go along with it anyway.

There’s a long pause before Daisy opens her mouth again. It’s as if she’s weighing the possibility colouring Jordan’s words, appraising their worth. A jeweler with a loupe, scrutinizing Jordan to see if her offer is really as valuable as she claims it to be. "I don't think that's something we should be doing," Daisy answers at last, because sometimes the trick doesn't work. She isn't finished, though. Has that look on her face like she’s got another thing on the tip of her tongue and she’ll share it if you wait her out for long enough. Most people wait for Daisy, hang onto every half twitch of her mouth like a lifeline, but Jordan is particularly good at it. It would be impossible not to be, after all the time she’d spent watching Daisy Fay and then, later on, following Daisy Buchanan.

So Jordan waits. And when Daisy is finally ready to bless the world with her thoughts, she says, “Tom promised to take me for dinner that night.”

The way Daisy says _Tom_ , all sticky-sweet and adoring, as if he isn't fucking his mistress downtown as they speak, twists a knife into Jordan's stomach. Jordan pulls back, sharp and sudden and furious.

Daisy blinks, slow and catlike. She slouches down, a flower wilting in the heat. Jordan stands, shoves her hands behind her so Daisy can't see them shake.

“I’ve just remembered,” Jordan says, clear and cold. “Aunty wanted me back at the apartment for dinner.” Never mind that it was only a quarter to four, the excuse wouldn't matter anyway. Daisy knew.

“Jordan,” she sighs in that same, feather-heavy way. “Don't be like that.”

“Like what?” Jordan barks out a laugh, meaner than she intended. “Like -”

_Like he’s not cheating on you with some two bit whore. Like you don't look the other way every time the phone rings. Like he shouldn't be worshipping the ground you walk on, groveling at your feet because he could never, ever, even hope to be good enough for you._

But Jordan doesn't say any of that. Just grits her teeth and swallows down the black sludge bubbling in her throat and threatening to spill over. “I have to go.”

Daisy doesn't say anything. Doesn't get up when Jordan storms out of the house. Jordan ignores the servant at the door and yanks it open herself. She slams it as hard as she can, hoping it echoes through the house loud and jarring enough to make even Daisy, limp and lifeless as she is, jump.

 

So Jordan goes to Gatsby’s party alone. And she must admit - the descriptions of it were not exaggerated.

Dozens of chandeliers hang from the ceiling, shimmering rainbows that bounce off the polished floors and the crystal glasses filled with everything from champagne to spiced cider. There's a band playing on a platform a little ways to the side, a jazzy tune that Jordan half remembers from another party she's been to. Saxophone, trumpet, a string instrument Jordan doesn't know the name of. The music snakes through the crowd and lifts people off their static feet to jump and sway, swing arms around and stutter ankles out. Men in sleek tailored suits and women in sequined dresses flock to each other like rare exotic birds, offering drinks and glimpses of pale, creamy thigh. One man offers his cigarette to a girl in a flashy green shift. She takes a long drag before pulling away, pushes her painted lips to his and blows the smoke into his mouth. Another man, wearing navy pinstripes, catches Jordan’s eye. He smiles from across the bustle and noise, raises his glass as if toasting to her. He winks, smile slowly turning to smirk.

Jordan matches the curl of his lips, gives him that look she knows could bring any man to his knees. She saunters up to him, perhaps not quite as steady as she should be this early in the evening. She drank, just a little, before coming to loosen herself up. Ease the sting of knowing Daisy was out somewhere with Tom eating ravioli genovese or zucchini florentine or whatever the fuck. It doesn't matter. So Jordan had had a glass or two of wine earlier, and then quite a bit of champagne when she got here. Cider, too, because it was fall. And she _does_ feel loose. Limbs relaxed and breath easy, not the jerky, uneven puffs that it’d been since storming out of Daisy's house.

So she saunters up to him, weaving through the jumble of moving bodies. He’s not as handsome as he’d appeared from afar. Crooked nose, broken once or twice, a top lip that didn't line up with the bottom. Older, too, than she’d originally thought, his hair thinning slightly, maybe a little gray though it was hard to tell in the flashing lights.

He offers her another drink, a yellow concoction with a candied lemon curl draped over the side. She takes it with practiced grace, leans against the bar in a way she hopes is alluring and not clumsy.

Booze blurs the transition between boring small talk and making out in some small, dark corner. Jordan likes the way his hands fit around her waist, likes the way she has to strain a little to reach his mouth. The actual kissing is pretty dull, though - too wet with not enough teeth for Jordan’s liking, the man not quite know what to do with his tongue. Jordan very quickly grows bored of it. She pushes him off and stumbles away. He lets her go, either too drunk to pursue her, or equally as bored as Jordan is.

Unsatisfied and frustrated, Jordan finds her way over to the bar. She drinks more, bubbly lighter-than-air champagne, and pointedly does not think about Daisy. Does not think about the line of her teeth when she bites her lip. Does not think about how, if she were here right now, she would be telling Jordan to slow down, probably would’ve cut her off an hour ago. Jordan thinks about it anyway, and it makes the alcohol in her turn sour and acidic, burn a hole straight through the bottom of her stomach and have it spill all over the floor. Maybe her heart would fall out, too, and everyone would see how twisted and wrong Jordan was. The black lump that should have been a human heart oozing sludge and broken glass, ruining the nice tiled floor.

Her vision starts to go hazy, her mind patchy like camera film that didn't develop right. She catches snapshots of bodies moving together, firecracker laughter and music loud in her ears, and when everything clears a little Jordan has a blonde girl she's never seen before in sitting her lap.

Jordan is about to push the girl off, demand to know what hell she thinks she’s doing, but then the girl dips down and kisses Jordan full on the mouth. For two, three seconds, Jordan doesn't react. She sits frozen, the girl a warm, solid weight and her lips waxy with lipstick, sweet-tasting. The girl gets her tongue into Jordan's mouth, curls it around Jordan’s before pulling it away and nipping at her lip.

Suddenly, ferociously, Jordan _wants._

Her hands scramble at the girl’s back to push them closer, and their chests press together. The swell of the girl’s breast on her’s, the heat of it, stokes the fire blazing in Jordan's belly. One of the girl’s hands buries itself in Jordan’s hair and tugs. The sharp sting is so sweet, and Jordan grabs the girl’s ass and grinds their hips together. The sound she makes buzzes against Jordan's lips and she wants more. Jordan slips a hand under her dress. The girl throws her head back in a gasp, and Jordan finally gets to look at her.

The girl is pretty in a plain sort of way: button nose, freckled cheeks, blonde hair. Her dress is this slinky, pale pink thing with small white beads embroidered all over it. They make some sort of indistinct flower pattern. Generic. The light reflecting off them is harsh, almost clinical, and Jordan realizes they’re in a bathroom. She can still hear the sounds of the party leaking in through the crack under the door. She worries, for a fraction of a moment, over whether or not the door is actually locked. The possibility of someone walking in, of someone seeing Jordan doing, doing _this_ , seizes her in fear. But the girl is pushing her mouth back onto Jordan’s, and Jordan's thoughts evaporate.

 

She wakes up the next morning dizzy and disoriented, pain rattling inside her skull. There's an acrid taste in her dry mouth that reaches all the way down her throat. Jordan struggles for a moment, trying to figure out where she is without having to open her eyes to the blinding light already bleeding through her lids. She shifts a little, feels silk sheets slide along her legs and catches a whiff of lilac, even though it’s nearly November. The smell, despite worsening her headache, tells Jordan she’s at her aunt’s house, in her own bed. Jordan takes a deep breath, ready to sigh in relief, but the liac triggers a wave of nausea. Her eyes fly open and start watering against the sting of the light and she stumbles out of bed to crawl to the bathroom.

Jordan promptly vomits in the pearl sink. It burns in her throat and nose, makes her mouth taste even worse than it did before. She spits a few times. It does nothing to get rid of the taste.

Wiping her mouth, Jordan watches herself in the mirror. She looks awful, but she’d expected that, really. Dark circles under her eyes, makeup smudged and hair limp and greasy. She’s still wearing the dress from last night. It’s one of her favorites, dark red with strips of black lace, low cut. It in no way hides all the dark bruises blooming on her neck: blue and purple and black, the very obvious outline of teeth right above her collarbone.

Looking at them makes Jordan angry. If she stays angry, she can ignore the guilt nipping at her heels. She spits at her reflection, nearly storms out of the bathroom - _her_ bathroom - to crawl back into bed.

Before she has the chance to, though, there’s a knock at her door. A voice, muffled: “Miss Baker? Mrs. Buchanan is on the phone for you.”

Jordan yanks open the door. The servant jumps - whether at the suddenness of Jordan's action or her disheveled  appearance, Jordan didn't know or care - and Jordan grabs the phone from him. She slams the door in his face, and speaks into the phone.

“Hello?” and _God_ does she sound horrible, voice scraped raw from vomiting and cracking from having just woken up. Jordan cringes.

“Well,” says Daisy. Her voice is flat, almost gravelly with the way it’s distorted through the phone. The top of Jordan’s spine prickles at it. “Good to know you didn't keel over last night from all that liquor you drank. Scared me half to death, I’ll tell you.”

“Daisy -” Jordan doesn't know what she’s going to say.

“Oh no, don't you ‘Daisy’ me, Miss Jordan Baker, you have no right to after calling me in the middle of the night, drunk as a bum -”

Whatever Daisy says next, Jordan can't hear it. She’s frozen in place at the sheer horror that she had called Daisy Buchanan drunk last night. Oh God, what had she done, what had she _said_?

“- so you know,” Daisy’s voice jars Jordan back to reality. Her voice has gone reedy, high pitched and thin, the way it does when she’s upset. “Tom doesn't appreciate you calling so late. He -”

Jordan sinks to the floor, puts the phone in her lap and clutches the receiver to her ear. She closes her eyes and presses her cheek against her bare knee, wishing the ground would open up to swallow her whole.

“- hung up before I had the chance to say it, but I love you too.”

Jordan’s eyes snap open. Her head jerks up so fast she almost gives herself whiplash, heart hammering in her chest. Did Daisy just - did she -

“You're my dearest friend, and I wish you’d take better care of yourself.”

Oh. Right.

Jordan slumps down, curls herself into a ball. Daisy keeps talking, but her voice is far away, muted. There’s a mumbled goodbye, at some point, and then the line goes dead.

Jordan hangs up, puts the phone on the floor and sprawls her legs out in front of her like she’s a child. She lifts a hand to push her hair back, and realizes there's something scrawled on her left arm. It’s a phone number, written in black india ink, shaky but still legible.

There’s a vague memory of a girl dressed in pink, giggling, holding a short red pen fitted with diamond chips. _No, noooo hold still - I’m gonna smudge it!_

Jordan crawls into the bathroom again. Ignoring the stench of vomit, she sits in the bathtub and rubs at her arm with a washcloth. She keeps scrubbing, even after the ink is gone. When she’s satisfied with the sting, with how raw and red her arm is, the rag gets tossed aside as she steps out of the tub to lean over the toilet. It takes her two, three tries before anything comes out. It burns worse this time around, and Jordan revels in it.

Her dress is soaked all down the front from washing the ink off, so she strips it and her slip off and leaves them in a pile on the bathroom floor for the servants to pick up.

Naked, she crawls back into bed. The sheets have grown cold in her absence, and she shivers. Jordan stares at the ceiling. China white, bland. Flawless as long as you’re far away enough that you can't see the cracks. Flawless as long as you believe it is.

Jordan throws the covers over her head and turns on her side, away from the vast, empty ceiling.

She vows to have a date the next time she goes to a party.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm pretty new at this, so any feedback is appreciated!


End file.
